London - I call it “STA”, Shared Table Anxiety. Symptoms include sphincter-clenching paralysis at breakfast, when you find there’s only one table at your B&B, and perspiration at the thought of eating toast cheek by jowl with fellow residents – including the amorous couple you heard active until the small hours.
When a work pal and I visited Château la Thuilière in the Dordogne, Sarah confided that the words “communal breakfast” triggered her stranger-danger alarm bells. However, the buffet served in the 19th-century manor’s characterful basement kitchen was delightful. “Owner Jordi is so gregarious, his charm rubs off on you; I now love swopping stories with fellow guests over pastries,” she says. “And when a place is that good, you feel like sharing.”
So, make like an anthropologist and get stuck in, I say. The worst-case scenario is usually just Mr and Mrs Dreary talking for hours about A roads versus B roads. Then there’s Mr or Ms Loudspeaker, who manages volume, but zero interest in anyone else.
Only if you’re really lucky does tension escalate to theatre-level entertainment. I recall travel writer Fiona Duncan remarking to her host that his distinguished hotel would make a great setting for weddings. Instead of agreeing, he dramatically stood up, glared at his wife and announced: “It’s certainly a damn good place for a divorce!” Awks. Well, at least she had front-row seats.
There’s no need to tense up, or avoid eye contact as you spill milk on someone’s napkin – at least, not if you’re in an interesting, intimate hotel. I’ve made lifelong friends thanks to this set-up.
At La Bandita, in Tuscany, we befriended couples from Australia and America. (The young French honeymooners made to sit next to someone else’s food-splattered child in a high chair, not so much.)
Paul Kitching, of Edinburgh’s 21212, is amused when guests see they’re sharing a table then, after a polite “good morning”, go their own ways. But, he says: “They mostly start chatting, and then you can’t get rid of them. They must be relatively like-minded to choose to stay at a restaurant with rooms – the menu is usually the talking point.”
Jo Gossett, from Devon’s Weeke Barton, remembers nervously loitering in the kitchen wondering if everyone would get along, thinking it was her and her husband’s job to host the atmosphere.
“It’s lovely to see people chatting about where and what they’ll do that day,” she says, “then see them come back in the evening and boast about their adventures.”
They considered separate tables but decided being social is part of their ethos. “We may have lost a few bookings as a result, but that’s okay.”
So, next time your heart sinks and you want to grab a croissant and go hide like a shy child on a first day of school, relax, smile, pour yourself a coffee and throw your room keys in. But please don’t talk about traffic blackspots.
The Independent on Sunday